


I'll save you

by piggy09



Series: Apples Fall [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drug Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>You’ve done everything that you could, you feel like there’s something else you’re supposed to do </em>
</p>
<p>{Beth has always been strongest when others need her. Set before Episode 1.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll save you

**Author's Note:**

> Title and description from [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgk6xFyiSaI).
> 
> Sometimes I just stop in the middle of what I'm doing, scream BETH CHIIIIILDS and fall on the floor.

When you were younger, you learned what it was to protect people.

There was a girl, at your school – she wore clothes that were stained and tattered, her eyes were large and frightened, her hair was unwashed. The other girls smelled weakness and they gathered around her, laughed, taunted.

Later, you think that you were too young to learn the language of fists and feet. Then, though, you only thought – _I have to help her. I have to_ do something.

That thought it what propels you now. It’s all that keeps you going, keeps you stumbling from work to – you can’t call it _home_ anymore, now that you know about Paul and the lies piling up between you. The lies that, you guess, were always between you. It’s hard to look him in the eyes now and think about how you trusted him. You trusted him more than you trusted yourself, because his eyes were steady and his hands were large and warm. Now you see that his eyes are cold and his hands are too steady, too steady. It’s hard to believe you ever trusted him, and harder still to pretend you still do. But you think about the girl on the playground, her eyes so wide, and you think about Alison, and how her hands trembled holding the gun. You pull a breath in, and out, and you reach for the pills, and you keep going.

You have to protect them. You are all they have.

You have always tried to protect people – in school, in charity runs (throwing your body to its limits because you can _do something_ ) _._ You became a cop in the first place because you wanted to help people. You wanted to stand against the bullies, grown up but still rotten on the inside. You wanted a lot of things, actually, but it turns out they all meant exactly shit. For every person you protected another was found in the street, or curled up in an alley, or battered in a hotel bed. For every bully you stopped, someone even worse went free. It wore – you – out. You groped desperately for a cure, but all you found were plastic bottles. They would have to do.

But then Katja found you, and she asked you for help. She _begged_ you, and you have always been strongest when others need you. You pulled yourself together enough. _I’m not just looking out for myself anymore_ , you whispered at your face in the mirror at night (your shaking, pale face). _My face isn’t just my face_. You kept the names clutched to your chest, worried at them like prayer beads – _Katja Cosima Alison Cosima Alison Katja_. Katja, twitching over her shoulder on your computer screen, her vivid hair a stark contrast to her bone-white face. Cosima, whose childlike enthusiasm could protect her from nothing. Alison, whose hands shake when she holds a wine glass or a pill bottle or a gun. The three of them could do nothing. You are all they have. You are all they have.

And so you do what you have to do. You lie, you hide things. You lie to Art. You hide things from Art. Sometimes, you just want to ask: am I doing the right thing, Art? Is this the best way to help people? He couldn’t know about this, though, any of this. You don’t say anything. You swallow more pills. You lie, you hide things. You learn more about – Alison was so offended by the “c word,” so: us. You learn more about “us.”

There are things you can’t tell them. It’s like protecting a child. You’ve never been able to have children, and never will, now (not with Paul not with Paul NOT WITH PAUL), but seeing the others makes you wonder what it would be like. Having a child would be like being a knight…you are sworn to protect. It is your holy mission.

(You wouldn’t tell them, but having clones is like both of those things.)

When you taught Alison to fire a gun you felt as empty as a deep dark pit. She was your mirror image, in more ways than one. She had a family, while you had (Paul) nothing. Her hands were smooth and soft. It felt like destroying something, teaching her to aim and shoot and shoot and shoot. When she hit the target and whirled around, her eyes wide and pleased, you thought _please_. _Please, let me be the only one who has to use a gun._

You shoot Maggie Chen for them. God. God, you shot Maggie Chen for them. She was so small, on the ground, and your hands shook. Your hands are your gun, and your gun shook. When you talk to them later, you want to tell them so desperately it feels like aching. It trembles on the tip of your tongue: _I killed someone for you. I would do it again_. You want to say it, as if. As if it would relieve you of any sort of burden. As if they would be _proud_ of you, like a child bringing home a report card. As if they would understand, and take your hands in theirs, and look at you with their eyes that are so much younger than yours have ever been. You couldn’t tell them. Your hands have blood on them. Theirs are clean. You have to protect them.

(But your hands shook, when you held the gun. They are shaking more and more. When you look in the mirror you see Alison’s shaking hands and Katja’s face, pale as bone, and the innocence of Cosima in your eyes. You aren’t even yourself anymore. You are cobbled together out of all of their parts, and they are so much stronger than you. You are weak. Weak, weak, weak.

You are all they have.)

But, remember: what you want means exactly shit. You aren’t good enough, anymore, to keep them alive. Not with your shaking hands. Not with the rattling of pills in your stomach when you walk. You are going to slip up, soon. You can feel it with all of the inevitability of an oncoming train. You are going to shoot someone, and Art won’t be able to help you. You are going to lead them back to those you promised to protect. You are going to yell at Paul, scream at him, and ruin everything. These certainties weigh on your back, draw the curve of your spine down. You are so tired. You are so tired.

You are all they have. But you are not enough.


End file.
